Biometric Security Now a Reality with BioLock, Coming to Android Soon

December 10, 2010 - Written By alicia gomez

Biometric security has long been desired on our phones to provide the most secure way to protect your phone from unwanted intrusion. BluePlanet Apps, maker of RoboPrint and dTor, has been developing this app for quite some and is nearly ready for a Beta release.

At the Apps World Conference, BluePlanet Apps CEO Jason Braverman presented BioLock to an audience including Samsung, who he says are interested in having it on their phones. BioLock is a truly futuristic concept brought to life by scanning either your iris, recognizing your face, or using a password to unlock your phone.

The app uses Army-grade algorithms for face modeling when doing facial recognition and even has blink detection and pupil dilation to prevent someone from merely using a photo of you. Without you physically there to scan your face or iris, no one can have access to your phone. Perhaps you do not need to lock down your phone completely but just prohibit access to specific apps, for example, your text messages. Whenever entering the app, Biolock is activated before opening.

Although BluePlanet also develops apps for Windows Phone 7 (WP7) and Apple, their main focus has been Android. Regardless of fragmentation and whatever other nuisance others may have with Android, Braverman found Android to be the key for developing the app. As explained in an interview last month, Braverman explains:

BioLock requires a certain degree of access in order to unlock a phone with your iris. When talking to Google and Microsoft, Blue Planet Apps was able to have a very open and frank conversation on this topic. When it came to speaking with Apple, they just said there was no way to access such functionality in their operating system.

A recent video shows a more refined UI than the screenshots on the website. While this is still in beta, there have been significant progress and tweaks and improvements are constantly being done, making this a truly state-of-the-art app. Have a look at BioLock being tested on a Samsung Galaxy Tab:

Braverman also talks about other possibilities that BioLock could bring. The plan is to have both a consumer version and a corporate version, making it truly a powerful security available for everyone.

“As for BioLock, it has many possibilities. We have ideas for a consumer and enterprise model, the consumer model will replace the lock screen, allow users to lock as much of the phone as possible, contacts, dialer, phone numbers, apps, etc…

The enterprise model is a whole nother beast, it connects to Microsoft Azure cloud, and does the authentication off the device, so the scan is taken, sent to the cloud, authenticated and sent back. It is currently designed to use a 1024bit Polymorphic Cipher which, should by some miracle someone intercepts the encrypted hash, is uncrackable. This is designed to be adapted into the end users applications, for example, a Banking app, or government email app that can encrypt messages before sending them (wikileaks would never have happened). Healthcare, etc… the list goes on and on.

We have some other ideas for this technology, as off shoots of BioLock, using the FFC (Front Facing camera) to scan a users face while playing a game and send targeted marketing, or for social media communication during gaming.

The end result is that with our smartphones and tablets rapidly replacing our desktops and laptops, most of our future financial and other secure transactions will be over mobile/wireless networks and will need much more robust security. Nothing is more secure or reliable than YOU. Iris being the MOST accurate, then Face. We are also going to add Voice verification in the consumer model of BioLock and users will have the option to choose one or a combination of options to lock down their device.

Blue Planet Apps is currently working very closely with Samsung to develop BioLock on Samsung devices, with the possible result being that Samsung will deploy it on all its devices as part of the AndroidOS. We have also been talking to Nokia for deployment of BioLock on the upcoming Meego platform and other platforms as well.”

BluePlanet is currently accepting requests to try out BioLock Beta on their Forums page. Any new information can be found on their twitter page.